


To Fear is Human

by Purplefern



Series: Twins -- A Human|Squip AU [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: But He Gets Better, Gen, Hey did I think of a clever title for once?, Human Jeremy Heere's Squip, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Endings, I'm Bad At Summaries, Jeremy Heere's Squip Uses They/Them Pronouns, Jeremy Heere's Squip looks like Jeremy Heere, Jeremy is a bit of an asshole at the begining, Learning to be Human, Panic Attacks, Platonic Relationships, Separation Anxiety, T only for swears, emotions am i right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23638375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purplefern/pseuds/Purplefern
Summary: Little more than two days into being human, the Squip had not left Jeremy alone. He was sick of it, and forbids the Squip from coming to school with him. The consequences aren't exactly what he had expected.
Relationships: Jeremy Heere & Jeremy Heere's Squip
Series: Twins -- A Human|Squip AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701745
Kudos: 57





	To Fear is Human

**Author's Note:**

> I’m too lazy to write up an actual origin fic, so here’s the basic backstory:
> 
> After the events of the Play, the Squip’s hardware is damaged, and ends up accidentality being rejected from Jeremy’s head. Normally, this would essentially “kill” it, since SQUIPs were designed to only work inside of a human host. But, the will to live is a powerful force, even for a supercomputer, so using the materials available to it (Jeremy’s DNA) they form themselves their own human body, essentially becoming their own host. (It’s more complicated than that, a bit more fusion-like, but anyway.) The long and short of it is that Human|Squip looks like Jeremy but slightly shorter and with blue eyes, kay? Kay.

“Jeremy, you should wear the blue shirt instead” commented the Squip as Jeremy got ready for school. Yep, his supercomputer showed up at his house human, and he still had to go to school. Of course, if the Squip was human now, you almost could have fooled Jeremy. It wasn’t like they were acting any different than before. Of course, them being human did mean one major change. It meant that he didn’t have to put up with their constant criticisms. 

“Okay, that’s enough of that” he said loudly as he grabbed his backpack and walked towards the door. 

“Jeremy, where are you going?” asked the Squip, looking up at him and meeting his eyes with their own icy blue ones. Jeremy shuddered slightly, and turned his gaze away, fiddling with his shoe laces instead. He wasn’t going to admit it, but human Squip kinda creeped him out. They looked just like him, except for the blue eyes. And the fact that they styled their hair differently. But other than that their face was an uncanny valley mirror and he was uncomfortable looking at it. 

“School, duh” he answered as sarcastically as he could muster, still looking at his shoes. 

The Squip cocked their head to the side for a moment, considering this. “You usually don’t leave for another half an hour” they noted, and was Jeremy paranoid or did they sound accusatory? 

“Yeah, well” he snipped, turning to face them again, “maybe I actually want to be on time for once, would that be so wrong?”. 

They brightened at that, saying, “Not at all. Allow me to put on some shoes of my own, and we can--” 

“Nope” rebutted Jeremy swiftly, turning 180 and marching right towards the door, “You are not going to school with me” 

It was a good thing Jeremy wasn’t facing them, or else he would have seen their expression fall disappointedly, “But Jeremy” they distressed, walking swiftly to overtake him and block his path, trying to catch his gaze, “What will you do if I’m not there to give you advice?” 

“Your ‘advice’ is useless anyway” he spat. Glaring at them, he added “I just got you out of my life, and to stop meddling with my friends, you are not going to school with me”. With that, he shoved them out of his path (and he couldn’t lie, he did get a thrill from for once being able to physically get back at the Squip and be able to not listen to them), and went out the door, with a parting sentence of, “My dad is at work, I’ll be home at 2:30”. He shut the door behind him, and was gone. 

The Squip stared at the back of the door, shocked and offended, and then crossed their arms and huffed. They should be going with Jeremy right now. He was helpless on his own. That was why he had gotten them wasn’t it? Then again, they thought to themself as they observed their all too physical hand, they were hardly functioning at peak capacity at the moment. They tapped their foot for a few moments, uncertain what to do now. They had never just had time to the themself before, they had always spent all of their time helping Jeremy. Well, baring the rare occasion that he had deactivated them temporarily, but even then they had had no awareness during that period of time. Now that they were simply being left alone, they were a bit lost. They looked around the hallway, before deciding to turn around and go back to Jeremy’s room. There, at least, they could use the computer (and they couldn’t ignore the burning feeling that settled in their stomach at the fact that they had to use any other device to access the internet. Also the disorienting feeling that they--a computer-- needed to use a computer). 

They browsed for a while, constantly annoyed how much slower this was than when they could just access the information themself. After that, they became aware of something feeling...wrong. They looked away from the screen, shifting in their seat, trying to place what the problem was. Of course, they were unused to any feelings, so trying to place what was wrong was a bit difficult. (Though they hated to admit that there were things that they couldn’t understand). They closed the windows on the screen and turned in the chair to look around the room, reflecting. It felt like...something was missing. But that couldn’t be, they had no material items to speak of that could be misplaced. As they sat in the empty room, they suddenly became aware of just how quiet it was, and that struck a bad chord in them. 

It was  _ too _ quiet, they realized. They couldn’t hear anything. They couldn’t hear  _ Jeremy _ , they realized with a start. His usual stream of consciousness that once took up nearly all of their awareness was completely absent. That had never happened before, and the more they noticed it, the more it disturbed them. It was gone. He was  _ gone _ . It wasn’t supposed to be like this, there was supposed to be something  _ there _ . It was so obvious, but they hadn’t noticed before, because he had been there talking before. This was the first time since showing up in this form that they had been away from him. Now that they noticed the silence, they couldn’t shake how unsettling it was. 

If he had been silent this long while they were a SQUIP, it would have meant serious danger. It would have meant, at the very least, that he was unconscious. Thinking, they calculated that they hadn’t heard anything from Jeremy in 5.66 hours. It was far too long to go without hearing anything from the user.  _ Warning,  _ the thought came to them in a bolt of panic, an echo of their old programming,  _ user in imminent danger.  _

“Jeremy is at school. He is fine” they said out loud to the open room in hopes of reassuring themself, shaking their head in an attempt to clear it. 

_ But IS he fine?  _ They wondered back to their own statement, the panic lingering. They couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him, couldn’t sense him. They had no way to know if their human was safe or not. 

Out of habit, they attempted to reach to their quantum processor and run the odds, to assure themself that the likelihood of something going wrong was slim. There was nothing. Their breath hitched at that, and they tried again. There was still nothing. 

Their heart rate increased in their ears as the gravity of the situation hit them. They couldn’t see or hear Jeremy, they had no idea what he was thinking, and now they couldn’t look to the future and have probabilities for what might happen to him. They were completely blind and Jeremy was just out there by himself. Jeremy was  _ useless  _ by himself, that was why he had gotten them! 

The silence was pressing down on them now, and they jumped from the chair and started to pace, mind envisioning all the potential difficulties that Jeremy could be facing this very moment. With no quantum processor to run the probable outcomes, one circumstance was as likely as any other.  _ Anything  _ could be happening to their host, right now! And they couldn’t help him, and their breathing hitched again at the thought. They were completely useless.

The thought was incredibly distressing. 

Before they could think about it, their pacing had turned them towards the door, and they had half formulated a plan to walk down to Jeremy’s school and make sure that he was functioning on his own. All the while they were continuing to picture every possible outcome for the day, the possibilities getting worse and worse as they thought about it. They were distantly aware of a painful, twisting feeling working its way into their stomach. By the time they made it to the hall by the door, their heart was racing and they were practically running, their hand reaching for the doorknob to throw open the door and make sure that they could help their human. 

When Jeremy got home from school, he had expected the Squip to be disapproving, critical, complaining, the usual. Or maybe he would just ignore them entirely. He really didn’t want to deal with any of their criticizing shit. What he wasn’t prepared for was the Squip practically falling on top of him as he opened the door, breathing erratically. 

“What the--” he was cut off as the Squip grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him over. 

“Jeremy” they sighed, sounding incredibly relieved, but they looked at him with worried eyes. “Was everything alright? Did you talk to the correct people? Did you remember to bring your homework with you? Did you manage in math class without my assistance? Were there any dangers on your walk home? Are you ok?” 

Though the Squip had let go of his shoulders, they remained close to him as they asked their string of questions, their breathing growing more sporadic with each one. 

Jeremy was taken aback at their reaction. They seemed to be near panicking, which made him feel something incredibly akin to empathy for them. 

They also seemed completely unaware of how sporadic and halted their breathing was at the moment, all of their focus turned to Jeremy. Hesitantly, Jeremy reached out and laid a hand on the Squip’s arm, and they looked down at it, surprised at the contact, but their previously panicked eyes growing minutely calmer. “Squip, chill, ok? I think you might be hyperventilating” he tried to keep his tone detached and criticizing (after all, even if they were human now he was still mad at them), but he couldn’t help but be slightly concerned. He and Micheal had both had their fair share of anxiety attacks before, and he knew how much it sucked. 

They just gave him a completely confused look, and he demonstrated, taking a deep breath and then letting it out. “Breathe” he advised, the hand on their arm moving to their back, in what was, to Jeremy, a very familiar gesture. They followed his example, and at that moment Jeremy could barely recognize them. The panicking, the way they struggled to regain control of their breath, the way they had relaxed as he placed a hand on their arm, it was all so very human. He had never even seen the Squip afraid before, let alone suffer a downright panic attack. 

While he was lost in thought the Squip had begun to hyperventilate again, and he quickly started to rub gentle circles on their back, reminding them again to breathe. As they struggled once again to get their breathing under control, looking to Jeremy for an example, he was struck with the realization that they were human. More than just looking human, they were  _ human _ . The lost and fearful look in their eyes, that element of weakness, was something no computer could ever have. The effect was somehow only emphasised by the fact that the Squip didn’t seem to realize they were acting this way. 

“Are you...ok?” he asked awkwardly, his hand falling back down to his side unceremoniously once the Squip appeared to be breathing normally. 

“I asked you the same question minutes ago and you have not yet answered” they replied, their tone back to its usual clinical nature, and speaking as if the panic attack had never happened. 

The moment of vulnerability apparently passed, Jeremy was left with the Squip he remembered from this morning. But they still didn’t move from where they stood a bit too close to him, and he was kept reminded that even if they spoke like a computer they weren’t anymore, which made him answer more agreeably than he normally would. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a normal day” he reassured, hoping to keep them from falling back into their panicking again. 

The Squip looked relieved at that, and all at once things seemed to go back to normal. Except for the tiny fact that the Squip didn’t go further than two feet from Jeremy for the rest of the day, probably without even realizing they were doing it. That, combined with the state they had been in when he came home, convinced Jeremy to just find a way for them to go to school with him. Trying to ignore them was probably just going to be more trouble than it was worth, and also a distant part of him felt bad for causing them so much pain. He would think of some cover story or other (or, more likely, the Squip would. Jeremy wasn’t exactly the best liar.) 

When he finally relented and told the Squip that they could come to school with him, the grateful relief they showed was enough to convince him he had made the right choice. 

“Good” they commented, nodding their head decisively, “After all, you’re helpless on your own. You’re going to need me sooner than you think” 

“I don’t think so” he disagreed, wondering to himself now if this was the right choice after all. He sighed, and decided that they would both have to do a lot of adjusting to this new human life the Squip suddenly had. They would just have to take this one step at a time. 

**Author's Note:**

> The more I think about the possible ramifications of a supercomputer designed to be in someone's brain suddenly becoming human, the more I spiral into this Human|Squip hole I've dug for myself. It seems to me that it would be incredibly jarring and difficult to go from an environment where you're always in control and always hearing someone else's voice to, well, humanity. So take this as I once again make the Squip sad. 
> 
> Hope you liked, leave kudos, comments, etc, thanks for reading.


End file.
